Madelyne Pryor, the Phoenix, Rachel, Cable, her annoying attraction to smelly Wolverine. They just do bad stuff TO her. They never use her. She's like the Scarlet Witch...she exists to be life's punching bag. They lurch from catastrophe to catastrophe. And it's never really ABOUT them or what they want or their desires. They're both just always caught up in a bunch of nonsense that gets inflicted on them.

If they got rid of all these alternate timeline relatives, cosmic entities and aliens slaughtering her real family members maybe Jean would be ok. Jean sucks because of everything the writers do to always tear her down. No one has bothered to really let her be happy or in control of her life.

I mean has she really been in control of her life since the 70's?

Normally,I would agree with you. I believe that even characters such as the Mole Man, the Toad, the Blob, Unus the Untouchable, the Toad Men, the Miracle Man, the Metal Master, the Vanisher, the Trapster ... can be interesting and even threatening if a good writer cares about them.

Still, when it comes to Jean Grey. It is different.

She is forever the Dark Phoenix because it is the most iconic version of the character.

Marvel don't bring her back because they care about Jean Grey as a character.

They do because the next X-Men movie is about the Dark Phoenix.

For decades, Marvel has tried to make the Phoenix Force an autonomous concept which can change hosts as it wants.

... but, deep down, they know that it is a mistake because it was a retcon of one of the most famous storylines in comics history.

The whole point of the story was about a decent human being who has become an extremely powerful being and who decides to sacrifice herself since she doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

So, the return of Jean Grey will also be the return of the Phoenix and the Dark Phoenix.

The problem is that each new story about the Phoenix is weaker than the previous one. It is systematically compared to the original saga and, let's face it, Chris Claremont & John Byrne made a one-time masterpiece.